Helpful Links

CII R0 exam resources worth your time.

A curated list of useful links for R01-R05 candidates: official CII pages, third-party training providers, exam strategy articles, podcasts, communities, and a few R0Ready resources that fit alongside the app.

What this page is for

  • Give R0 students a practical shortlist rather than a dump of generic finance links.
  • Keep useful study tools, exam guidance, and industry context in one place.
  • Make the page readable on mobile without relying on wide tables.
For firms

Supporting your team's CII success

If you're a financial advice practice, network, or training provider with staff working toward CII qualifications, R0Ready can help with structured, self-paced exam prep.

R0Ready resources

Start here if you want the R0Ready version of support.

These are the pieces that sit closest to the product itself: the app, the free demo, the Spotify companion, and Michael's Substack on the career-change path into planning.

R0Ready App

App

Spaced repetition practice for R01-R05, built around original questions, timed mocks, and progress tracking.

Free R01 Demo

Demo

Try 15 free R01 questions with explanations and see how the spaced repetition flow actually feels.

Spotify Companion

Audio

Free audio companion to the exam journey, paced around the syllabus and built for commutes, walks, and review away from the screen.

Unadvised

Newsletter

Michael's Substack on money, work, and changing career into financial planning.

Official CII

The pages every R0 student should know.

The practical starting point: qualification info, supporting exam documents, results timing, and the CII tools included with enrolment.

Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning

Official

Main qualification page covering enrolment, syllabus details, and how the diploma is structured.

RevisionMate

Included

CII's own online practice question tool, included with enrolment or study-text purchase.

Accessed through your CII enrolment rather than a public landing page.

Supporting Exam Documents

Official

Tax tables and related documents that appear in the exam and are worth studying beforehand.

Exam Results Information

Official

Explains how and when CII exam results are released after you sit a unit.

CII Exam Guides

Essential

Available per unit on the CII website and usually the first free mock-style paper worth working through.

Look for the guide attached to the specific R0 unit you are sitting.
Training providers

Third-party providers that come up repeatedly for R0 students.

Useful when you want more than the study text: readable notes, one-day workshops, calculation workbooks, e-learning, or mocks that feel closer to the real exam.

Bespoke Training Solutions

R01-R05

Study guides, e-learning, workshops, and one-day masterclasses across the full R0 range. Often cited as the exam-specialist option.

KnowR0

Digital

E-learning packages and mock exams for R01-R05, often recommended for explanations and exam-style feel.

Wizard Learning

Structured

Online courses, gap analysis, and assessments, with a long-running pass-rate comparison table that many students check.

Skills Edge Training

Masterclasses

One-day revision support and masterclass-style help for students who want intensive sessions alongside self-study.

Redmill Advance

Self-study

Self-study courses with video tutorials, study guides, assignments, and mock exams across R01-R05.

The Patterson Group

Audio

Audio study material for R01-R05, aimed at candidates who want to learn while commuting, walking, or training.

Podcasts

Useful audio for career context and topic understanding.

Some of these are directly about becoming a planner. Others are better for helping pensions, tax, investment, and protection concepts click outside revision mode.

Financial Planner Life

Career

Career stories from planners, paraplanners, and career changers. Good for seeing where the exams fit into real careers.

NextGen Planners

Career

The community podcast for new and aspiring planners, with a mix of best practice, career development, and industry discussion.

The I Just Fell Into Financial Planning Podcast

Career

Interviews with people at different stages of financial planning careers, especially useful if you are entering from another field.

The Financial Planning Podcast

Career

Conversations with directors and owners of planning firms, useful for understanding the profession on the other side of the exams.

Meaningful Money

Knowledge

Plain-English coverage of pensions, investments, protection, and tax that helps make R02-R05 topics easier to grasp.

YouTube

Visual explainers and industry-facing content.

Useful when text is dragging and you want a clearer visual explanation of pensions, tax, investments, or the shape of the profession.

Meaningful Money

Explainers

Simple, visual walkthroughs of pensions, ISAs, investments, and tax. Especially useful for R02-R05 topic understanding.

Financial Planner Life

Career

Career-focused content and interviews, including collaborations with training providers that many R0 students already know.

Communities

Places where R0 questions and career questions overlap.

Useful for seeing what other candidates are struggling with, which providers people recommend, and how early-career planners are navigating the qualification route.

The Big Tent

Forum

The best-known paraplanning discussion board, with active R0 study-material threads and a particularly useful CPD and exams section.

r/cii

Reddit

Small but growing subreddit for CII-specific discussion.

r/UKPersonalFinance

Reddit

Not exam-specific, but very useful for strengthening your intuition around tax, pensions, and investments.

NextGen Planners Community

Community

Community and events for new and aspiring planners, with a strong overlap between studying and career development.

Exam strategy

Practical reading for how to approach the R0 route.

A mix of first-hand advice, training-provider guidance, and higher-level overviews of exam order, revision method, and time management.

10 Top Tips for the R0 Exams

LinkedIn

James Tout's first-hand account of passing R01-R05 as a career changer, with practical study and sequencing tips.

What Order to Sit the R0 Exams

BTS

BTS guidance on unit sequencing, including the usual question of whether to start with R01 or R05.

Navigating the R0 Exams

Brand FT

Brand Financial Training's guide to the R0 route, including data on the order candidates actually choose.

Revision Tips for the R0 Exams

Brand FT

Practical tactics for mock usage, multi-response question technique, and time management.

A Beginner's Guide to the R0 Exams

Professional Paraplanner

High-level starting guide covering enrolment, study options, exam format, and how to get moving if you are new to the diploma.

Industry news

Good references once you want more than exam technique.

These are useful for R01 regulation context, for following the industry you are qualifying into, and for reinforcing tax, pensions, and investment knowledge from better real-world angles.

Money Marketing

News

Trade publication covering regulation, policy changes, and adviser-facing industry analysis.

Professional Paraplanner

Magazine

Exam tips, technical articles, and career content aimed at paraplanners and aspiring advisers.

IFA Magazine

News

News, analysis, and CPD-style content for IFAs, including wider industry developments.

FCA Handbook

Reference

The source material for a lot of R01 regulation content. Dense, but definitive.

HMRC Tax Guidance

Reference

Official tax rates, allowances, and guidance that are directly relevant to R03 study.

The Pensions Regulator

Reference

Useful for workplace pension guidance and regulation, especially around R04 topics.

MoneyHelper

Plain English

Government-backed guidance on pensions, investments, insurance, and related personal finance topics in cleaner language than most source material.